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Green Tea Cleans Hard Drive Heads
mprindle writes "Wired.com has an article announcing that a 'study of the use of green tea extracts for polishing the magnetic heads in hard-disk drives has yielded a compound that works three to four times faster than conventional compounds. If the findings can be reproduced in an industrial setting, the compound could reduce the cost and environmental impact of hard-drive manufacturing.' And you just thought that green tea was good to drink."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_tea
There appears to be an innovation that may make HD production more efficient. So far so good. How is this made more relevant by the fact that it involves a chemical compount also found in green tea?
"Considering that bio-active materials like green tea (yum!) decay and eventually become unusable and must be disposed of properly, doesn't it make more sense to stick with chemicals which, though bad for the environment, do not decay or degrade and can be used in a specific task indefinitely?" :)
I don't think they'll actually be using green tea
Just any extracts from it that can do the job well (although, I hope they look into whether it'll degrade or not over time).
Silly rabbit
RTFA, please, before replying.
The conventional slurry has to be disposed also, according to strict environmental guidelines.
Furthermore, the green tea compound is just used to wash off the ceramic particles produced during polishing.
And I'm pretty sure that green tea biodegrades in any suitable environment, oxygen or no.
This process is gentler to the components that make green tea such a wonderful beverage. Earl Grey, Ceylon, Bo Lei, and whatever other brown or black tea have been pan-fried or dry-heated to stop the natural oxidation process.
Steaming preserves the EGCG , which is being studied for it's anti-bacterial and cancer fighting properties, and also L-Theanine , which gives real green tea it's flavour and purportedly induces Alpha waves and tranquility in the brain.
Ounce per ounce, Steamed green tea contains more polyphenols than red wine or grape seed extract.
I have an anxiety problem, and had to swear off coffee a few years ago. No caffeine in any form for me, until I stumbled upon japanese green tea. All tea contains caffeine , but it is about 1/2 the amount in the same serving of coffee. The added benefit of the L-Theanine practically cancels out the effect of caffeine on the body and in the brain.
I start the day with a cup of thin matcha (do two of these and can you say "420"?) , then a cup of Gyokuro and in the evening some nice genmai cha.
Unfortuneatly, green tea is only harvested 4 times per year in Japan. Green tea is very perishiable, and is best when fresh. The bags you can purchase in asian groceries here in the U.S. of A. have been sitting on shelves too long and taste like crap. (Bonus note: all the decaffeinated 'green' teas you can purchase in regular supermarkets will not taste like the real thing, pretty bitter and bland. There is no decaffeinating process that doesn't kill all the good things about green tea. Fresh green tea is naturally sweet and not bitter when prepared correctly.)
Interested? I purchase all my teas from here.
Wait, What?
In some places (eg. Russia and Arabic countries) tea is traditionally served in glasses.
Here in Holland you also get tea served in a glass usually
Reminds me this story that my dad told me, who's worked on big systems back in the 50's and 60's working as an aerospace employee, back when they were still using magnetic cores. They had been having major problems with the core overheating. Somehow, and don't ask me how, they figured out that Wildroot Cream Oil was the perfect coolant, and the core worked like a charm from then on.
Guess they figured it out in much the same way they figured out green tea cleans heads really well!
-R